Top 20 North American Athletes Who Allegedly Slept With A Teammate’s Wife

In an athlete handbook, or any bro handbook for that matter, there are quite a few rules that apply to life inside and outside of sport for all friendships or teammates to take into account. Among them, and a fairly common sense situation you would never want to find yourself roped into, would be that of sleeping with another teammate’s wife. However, and unfortunately due to the nature of the game, infidelity among athletes is as ramped and as common as breathing, regardless of where that wandering eye leads too. As famously identified in a CNN study, the sad truth is around 80-90% of all professional athletes cheat on their wives.

The perks of the money they make tend to get them in trouble and their own worst enemy more often than not turns out to be the pitfalls of social media and the ability of screenshots and speculations to be circulated around the Internet. Due to this, just don’t cheat. Save yourself the hardship, and even take that one step further and don’t sleep with one of the wives of a teammate.

With that piece of advice, here are the guys that didn’t listen and made our list of the Top 20 North American Athletes Who Slept With a Teammates Wife. A whole list could apply to popular soccer players in Europe, but we’ll stick with this side of the Atlantic for now.

20. Jeff Brown (Kirk McLean) – Vancouver Canucks

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Kirk McLean is a former goalie, a long time Vancouver veteran who stood between the posts for the Canucks for around ten years way back when. In McLean’s seventh year of being on the team they welcomed all-star defenseman Jeff Brown from the St. Louis Blues, who to this day holds quite a few franchise records. He did not last for a whole lot of time there, however, as rumors started to come to head between a possible affair between himself and McLean’s wife, who denies ever meeting him, let alone having any interaction with Brown.

Despite her claims, McLean’s play dropped down quite a few noticeable levels which has been attributed to said affair, or just old age. Either way, Brown only lasted for one season on the Canucks before heading on to the next with the Hartford Whalers.

19. Delonte West (LeBron James) – Cleveland Cavaliers

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This bizarre situation that arose between Delonte West and LeBron James while playing in Cleveland is definitely one that was a little out of the ordinary. It all started during the 2010 playoffs when rumors were starting to spin that James’s teammate, West, was…well…sleeping with his mom, Gloria James. They eventually lost to the Boston Celtics, placing the blame on lack of chemistry with the team. Finger pointing ensued towards a rather rattled LeBron, who just happened to be playing super poorly during the time all of this was going down.

Even though West did a good job of deflecting the rumors, he may have inadvertently confirmed it a few years back in an interview when asked why he didn’t name his son Delonte Jr., to which he responded, “I don’t want my son going to school and people making fun of him for something his daddy did, “Oh didn’t yo daddy have sex with LeBron James mama?’ Man, I don’t want to deal with all that”…hmmm.

18. Michael Jordan (Scottie Pippen) – Chicago Bulls

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Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen are a rather recognizable Chicago Bulls duo who were a force to be reckoned with back in the day. Being as close as they were meant that they would compete against each other for everything, including women. Their most infamous of the ladies at one time was the then young pop star, Madonna. Pippen and Madonna had a good thing going and she would pick him up in her limo, which had a hot tub, every time they came to LA for games. A jealous Jordan tried to steal her away a few times, being unsuccessful in the process usually getting the response, “not a chance”. It apparently drove him nuts and he would try to argue that he could satisfy her better, to which she would turn a blind eye and go about her day.

17. Jeff Carter (Scott Hartnell) – Philadelphia Flyers

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Back in 2009, Jeff Carter and Scott Hartnell were apart of what seemed like a rather promising team to do decently that instead turned into a nightmare. During this time, the locker room was split down the middle allegedly due to the center man, Carter, having slept with Hartnell’s wife. Whenever there is a disconnect in the room, it unfortunately is usually attributed to infidelity between teammates, making it an awkward and uncomfortable day to show up to work. The affair was denied, like all of them are, however you can’t help but wonder where accusations come from like that to begin with.

Since then, Harntell has split from his wife, enduring a rather nasty and public divorce to which he congratulated her on his hefty divorce payments.

16. Mike Comrie (Tommy Salo) – Edmonton Oilers

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The Tommy Salo and Mike Comrie love affair was definitely not one that ended well. The Prince of the Brick decided it would be a good idea to go and sleep with his veteran goaltender, Salo’s wife, resulting in quite a bit of turmoil for both parties. When Salo found out about the affair, he confronted his beloved wife who hastily decided to pack up and move back to Sweden basically taking everything he ever loved. He fell into a depression and slump, and began to play terribly as a result.

Comrie refused to comment on the rumor at the time, creating even more uncertainty about the validity of the claims. By the end of that season, Salo was traded to the Colorado Avalanche and Comrie eventually wifed up Disney star Hilary Duff.

15. Pavel Bure (Sergei Fedorov) – Team Russia

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A rather tricky situation arose from the triangle of Sergei Fedorov, Pavel Bure, and blonde tennis bombshell, Anna Kournikova, a few years back. Okay, get ready to keep track, but it all started with Bure and Anna who were in a relationship. The two of them met however when she was still linked to Fedorov, and even though she was still linked to Fedorov, Bure and her were supposedly engaged after a secret pic was snapped of them together, quickly making headlines from North America to Russia.

Both of them denied being engaged as she was only 18 years old at the time and he was 10 years older than her, so it only made sense that Kournikova married Fedorov the next year, divorcing a few years later.

14. DeMarco Murray (Brennan Clay) – Oklahoma Sooners

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The Dallas Cowboys DeMarco Murray was having one of the best seasons in Cowboys history going for him, while doing an equally explosive job of destroying former teammate Brennan Clay’s marriage. The two NFL players were once teammates at the University of Oklahoma for one brief season. Back in 2014 Clay took the affair public and confided to his Twitter followers while calling out Murray for having an affair with his wife.

The following day Clay told the media he would be divorcing his wife after finding text messages between her and Murray, even going as far as posting a screen shot of one of them to Twitter in which the two were sneakily arranging a booty call. Ouch… After only four months of marriage the divorce was finalized and the only evidence we have left is a list of angry tweets.

13. Karl Malone (Kobe Bryant) – L.A. Lakers

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Here’s a beef between teammates that stretches back decades over the flirtatious wife of Kobe Bryant, Vanessa. Back in 2004, Bryant accused his teammate Karl Malone of putting the moves on his wife. It all started one day when Malone was wearing a cowboy hat and boots, to which Vanessa said “Hey, cowboy, what are you hunting”, and his response was, “I’m hunting for little Mexican girls”.

Bryant called Malone out over the comments and to this day Malone says he would be open to hashing it out. “I’m 6-9, 272, to be exact: I’m not hard to find. But if something’s got to go down, I’m not playing fair. [If] we’ve got to get down, then we’ve got to get down. I’m just telling you.’’ Stay tuned.

12. Avasail Garcia (Prince Fielder) – Detroit Tigers

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When the Detroit Tigers star Prince Fielder got traded from the team, the reasoning was uncertain and unknown by many, until Tigers teammate Miguel Cabrera figured it all out. Avasail Garcia was shockingly sleeping with Fielder’s wife and Cabrera decided to bring it to light in the clubhouse but throwing the first punch while sticking up for Fielder. In the process of this, he re-injured himself and the whole room blew up. To conduct damage control the team quickly traded Garcia in order to get rid of the problem and get him as far away from Fielder’s wife as possible, which didn’t end up going away as all the chemistry was now offset, resulting in Fielder being traded in the offseason. It just shows how hurtful an affair could be.

11. Chris Chelios (Ronald Corey) – Montreal Canadiens

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This rumor is another big exception for this list, as it didn’t involve a teammate’s wife, but it allegedly involved the team president’s wife. Chris Chelios was a young star defenceman with the Montreal Canadiens and played with the team for six seasons. In the summer of 1990, Chelios was traded the day after he was caught urinating in public and fighting two police officers. However, there may be more to the story.

A longstanding rumor in Montreal was that GM Serge Savard had no choice but to trade Chelios after it was discovered Chelios had been sleeping with team president Ronald Corey’s wife. Chelios was sent to Chicago for Denis Savard and it would prove to be one of the worst trades in Canadiens history. The fact that Chelios went to Chicago for an aging player, lends credence to the notion that this was more than a “hockey” trade.

10. Shannon Brown (Pau Gasol) – L.A. Lakers

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Back in 2011, the Dallas Mavericks executed perfect play and swept the Lakers out of the playoffs, leaving the fans wondering what had gone wrong with such a normally strong team. Well of course it had to do with girl drama among the team and the two particular teammates in question were Shannon Brown and Pau Gasol. Gasol’s performance fell and his numbers took a drastic downturn following speculation that he had a confrontation with Brown who apparently slept with his wife Silvia Lopez Castro. However, before that, Kobe Bryant let it slip to his wife that Gasol had a girl on the side, so naturally Vanessa told Castro right away, breaking off the engagement. So in classy revenge matter Castro and Brown slept together during the year, later being discovered towards the end of the season.

9. Golden Tate (Russell Wilson) – Seattle Seahawks

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Golden Tate and Russell Wilson were once teammates on the Seattle Seahawks, ending on rather a bad note. Tate was rumored to be having an affair with Ashton Meem, the now ex-wife of Russell Wilson, that came to a big ugly head the week before Super Bowl XLVIII, when Percy Harvin punched Tate in the face. Unfortunately Russell went radio silent on the matter and was neither confirming nor denying what went on, making Tate, the current Detroit Lions player, look even worse.

Tate blames the Wilson party for letting everything go out of control in the first place, and when asked if he thinks Russell holds the rumors accountable, he replied, “I don’t know what he believes” and “it’s sad that he’s letting this go on.” Wilson has since gotten remarried to Ciara.

8. John Harkes (Eric Wynalda) – Team USA

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The American World Cup team for soccer got quite twisted up back in 1998 when it was made public that the captain, John Harkes, was having an affair with teammate Eric Wynalda’s wife, Amy. A fellow teammate decided to bring the affair to the attention of the coach, who supposedly talked with both the players to avoid the matter from going public, and as we can see that did not go as planned.

To put an end to the suddenly front and center subject, the coach decided to cut captain Harkes from the team two months before the World Cup opening match. Of course Harkes was not a happy camper, but he did to a clean job of making sure to never divulge the details behind what had happened which of course we still have no idea about.

7. Tony Parker (Brent Barry) – San Antonio Spurs

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The media headlines were flooded back in 2010 when Tony Parker, who was married to the beautiful Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, was said to be having an affair with teammate Brent Barry’s wife. After gaining access to Parker’s phone, a suspicious Longoria uncovered hundreds of texts between her husband and Erin Barry who maintained a long sexting relationship. The Parkers were good friends with the Barrys, spending special occasions together such as New Years and birthdays, making the whole discovery even worse of a go for everyone involved.

Brent filed for divorce from Erin after that, and three weeks later Eva filed for divorce from Tony as well due to a combination of this scandal and his previous cheating encounters. Parker has since remarried and claims to be a new man.

6. Derek Fisher (Matt Barnes) – L.A. Lakers

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Once again, we come to a situation where a player slept with the wife of a former teammate. Perhaps they figure loyalty isn’t an issue anymore once you’re not teammates? Well, in this case Derek Fisher, at the time coach of the New York Knicks, was seeing Gloria Govan, the ex-wife of Matt Barnes, who was playing with the Memphis Grizzlies at the time. The two had previously been teammates on the Lakers and even though Barnes was no longer married to Govan, clearly he felt Fisher broke the bro code of never hooking up with a friend’s ex.

When he found out Fisher was seeing Govan, Barnes drove 100 miles to fight Fisher in front of Govan’s family, according to a report from the New York Post.

5. Leandro Barbosa (Steve Nash) – Phoenix Suns

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A day after his baby was born, Steve Nash filed for divorce from his wife. Normally, this would be frowned upon, right? Except for the fact the baby came out African-American and was very clearly not his. Alejandra Amaralla was Nash’s wife who got pregnant and naturally he assumed it was his. Well when the bundle of joy came out another race it was initially said to be Leonardo Barbosa’s kid, but then it was said to have been Jason Richardson’s kid, and to top it all off Nash was having an affair of his own with a 22-year-old named Brittany.

Later in a statement released by Amaralla, she tried to reason that, “the decision to separate was in no way related to the children or [the baby’s] paternity”, okay Ale you keep telling yourself that.

4. Colin Kaepernick (Aldon Smith) – (San Francisco 49ers)

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Colin Kaepernick has fallen out of favor in San Francisco the past couple of seasons, but a few years ago, the Niners looked like a Super Bowl caliber team. However controversy arose when Kaepernick supposedly began seeing the same woman as star pass rusher Aldon Smith.

Smith was seeing MTV star Nessa and were reportedly going steady. Kaepernick began pursuing Nessa and allegedly a fight broke out in practice between the two. Smith and Nessa soon split up, freeing up Kaepernick to date her for a while. One has to wonder if this was a contributor in the Niners’ downfall.

Since the incident, Smith has left San Fran and his NFL future is up in the air, as he’s suspended indefinitely by the NFL. Meanwhile, Kaepernick may leave the team this offseason.

3. Patrick Sharp (Duncan Keith) – Chicago Blackhawks

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This particular cheating scandal took place on the Chicago Blackhawks, resulting in two of their spotlight players being at odds over a wife. Reports came about that Sharp slept with Keith’s wife, Kelly-Rae Keith, even though Sharp is also married. The whole thing got swept under the rug in hopes of boycotting the accusations, and was denied by Sharp in the media, explaining the toll it was taking on his personal relationships. The rumors, as expected, hit Keith hard as all media outlets ran with it and it was even speculated that there was a major rift going on with the club internally during this time.

Keith and his wife eventually got a divorce and when asked if the alleged cheating was a factor he responded with, “my divorce had nothing to do with anything except what was between me and Kelly-Rae, and that’s where I’d like to keep it”.

2. Brendan Shanahan (Craig Janney) – St. Louis Blues

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The hockey world’s own version of wife swap occurred between St. Louis Blues teammates Brendan Shanahan and Craig Janney back in the day. Shanahan took to Janney’s wife, Catherine, while the two were playeing alongside each other leading to the inevitable start of an affair to remember. When Craig caught wind of what was going on he divorced his wife, who fell in love with Shanahan and ended up getting married to him. When the team realized what was going on in the locker room the coach tried to act fast to avoid conflict and shipped Janney off to San Jose, then traded Shanahan in the offseason.

Fans were of course upset that two of the best players had been relocated, until the wedding of 1998 when the truth came out and Catherine walked down the isle to Shanahan.

1. Fritz Peterson AND Mike Kekich (New York Yankees)

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Now onto the original wife swap of the MLB world, occurring back in 1973 when two New York Yankees pitchers quite literally traded wives, families, and all. The two pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, exchanged families and reportedly told the media, “unless people know the full details, it could turn out to be a nasty type of thing. Don’t say this was wife swapping, because it wasn’t. We didn’t swap wives, we swapped lives”, because that makes it so much better.

Peterson and Kekich’s wife lived happily ever after and had a great relationship, while Kekich and Peterson’s wife eventually split up. The Yankees organization was aware of the bizarre relations and despite the managers stating they both asked NOT to be traded, Peterson asked to be traded for “personal reasons”, which I think we can all agree would have been a good decision.